Why doesn’t Cayman Airways participate in the US TSA pre-check programme for expedited security clearance? If I am travelling from one of the cities with competing flights to Cayman Airways (Miami, Chicago, New York) to Grand Cayman and have a choice of expedited security clearance (American, United, etc) vs the slow lanes (Cayman Airways), I will always choose the airline with TSA pre-check. It seems to me that by not participating in pre-check, Cayman Airways puts themselves at a competitive disadvantage.
Auntie’s answer: Your point is well taken; I cannot imagine anyone enjoys being stuck on ridiculously long security lines. But I have some good news. Fabian Whorms, Cayman Airways CEO, explained that the pre-check programme was initially only for North America-based airlines, but it “now allows participation of non-US airlines”.
Mr Whorms said that Cayman Airways is in the “early stages of working with the TSA to become a pre-check partner airline” and the airline hopes to implement the programme by the second quarter of this year.
He added that as the time gets closer to activating the programme, the airline will provide further information.
Send questions to auntie@caymannewsservice.com
Global entry works fine for us US travellers. Don’t waste your money on this.
CAL would be well advised to get in one of the alliances, OneWorld, Star so that they could leave from domestic terminals of one of the partners. In Chicago precheck doesn’t exist where CAL leaves from in the international terminal. I fly Lufthansa from ORD to Europe through United domestic terminal and it works great. Same thing to Cayman it just works.
It is a waste of money.
A fast lane seems unnecessary. I’ve never had to wait more than 4 or 5 people deep for our normal ASU Security, and yes, they take their time and are thorough, and I like that. It’s not like they are detaining us from absorbing all of the wonderful splendors inside the lounge area a 20 second walk away. Everyone that arrived on time gets through just fine.
Owen Roberts should have allocated sufficient space for a quiet partitioned business lounge….Priority Pass, AMEX Centurion, Sir Whatever or some such. Every departing passenger is going to smell like greasy onions in a few months, once all the fast food goes in…like every mall food court in America. Gross.
Forget about Pre-Check.. what KX needs a good app for mobile boarding pass
In Miami, it’s not the lack of TSA-Pre for us, it’s the musty, 3rd world basement of a Terminal they leave from.
It helps keep the costs lower. I agree it’s crap gate but if it’s keeping the fares reasonable I won’t complain.
Enjoy!
Excellent news. Unfortunately we really missed an opportunity by not implementing US Pre-Clearance at Owen Roberts given that 90% of our air traffic goes into the US. If they can do it in Bermuda why can’t we do it here?
PWC looked at this intheir study. The problem is that you need to a) pay for the costs of US CBP officers to be resident here to do the checks b) physically segregate the US pre cleared passengers from all the other passengers, both domestic and for non US destinations. So you need separate departure lounges and security. Seem to recall the cost per year was massive – in excess of $10m I recall.
Really, it is a pittance compared to the $25M subsidy we pay for Cayman Airways and would be of great value to our US visitors. Very shortsighted.
Seasoned USA/Cdn travelers can just use mobile passport app for free and entirely paperless – I’ve never seen more than 3 people in that line, most of them crew. More often, there is no line at all. Only amateur dinosaur travelers would still wait in line for a chance at the BPA thermal paper kiosks and then wait in line again. Go to the app store.
Having checked again, I see that the costs were estimated at US$7m per year recurring just for the US officers, US$21 million for hard costs in additional infrastructure and building, and an unknown amount in increased operating cost per year to staff the duplicate terminal facilities needed, including having to personally escort passengers to and from aircraft to ensure no mixing of US cleared and uncleared passengers (not least because there no plans to install air bridges). So hardly a “pittance” at all – more like probably increasing the subsidy by 50% and the cost of the airport expansion by 33%. Against that the report noted that with the advent of automatised clearance system such as mobile passport apps and Global Entry, the inconvenience to passengers of clearance on arrival was being significantly reduced.
Because Bermuda is much more advanced on everything related to airports compared to Cayman.
Too funny. Nope better at wasting money, they haven’t managed to balance a budget since 2007(?). They have champagne tastes and a beer budget.
Waste of space and money. If you are USA or Cdn passport holder, just download the “mobile passport app”, send your form before your plane takes off from Cayman, and you are processed in seconds on the USA side. I’ve had flights where I didn’t have to stop walking – there was no line and the guy saw the QR code and just waved us through.
What about pre check for the North American airlines here, will it only be for Cayman Airways?
TSA-Pre is a stateside convenience (@$100/yr). The TSA is a USA gov’t agency. In the Cayman Islands, not part of the United States, have the Airport Security Unit (ASU) that are certified under UK Dept of Transport Regulations, so TSA-Pre would not be recognized.